


Endings

by sunflowerspaceman



Series: Sympathy for the Devil [9]
Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Assassination, Gun Violence, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Old Age, Other, Past Character Death, Tord kind of deserves this, he wishes it had been on the battlefield though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 07:26:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15576801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerspaceman/pseuds/sunflowerspaceman
Summary: Tord meets his ending.





	Endings

It’s oddly quiet in Tord’s office.

The sounds of battle outside stopped ten minutes, thirty three seconds ago. Tord has been sitting stone still, watching the clock tick by.

He’s too old to be fighting this war anymore, he thinks. He’s well into his fifties, but he looks much older. His hair is completely grey now, like steel. The unscathed side of his face is carved with deep lines. He even walks with a cane now—an errant bullet on the battlefield blew out his knee almost a decade ago.

Yes, he’s far too old now for all of this. It’s taken years off his life, and he knows it.

He surrendered eleven minutes ago.

Now it feels like the whole world is holding its breath. Everything is deathly silent, and Tord sits in his office alone, patient, calm, and accepting. 

He hears faint footsteps in the hall, growing louder as whoever it is grows closer. Tord sinks back in his old leather chair, resigned to the fact that whoever is coming is not going to be a friend.

The footsteps stop, and his door is kicked open. He raises his eyebrow. 

“You know, the door was unlocked.” 

Even his voice sounds old by now. It’s thick and rough, decades of smoking obvious. 

Tord gazes at his assassin, thoroughly unimpressed. The man in front of him wears a wrinkled, stained khaki uniform. His eyes are dark and sunken, his whole face gaunt and sickly. He’s unshaven and long dark hair hangs from his skull, matted and unwashed. He’s obviously younger than Tord too, by two or so decades.

He almost looks like a rat, Tord observes.

“Sit.” Tord gestures to a chair in front of his desk as he stands, leaning heavily on his cane. “I’ll get us some wine, ja?”

He limps towards his wine cabinet, pulling out a bottle of merlot and two wine glasses. He has to make two trips—his flesh and blood hand shakes so much nowadays he doesn’t want to risk holding both the bottle of wine and the glasses in it at the same time. His assassin doesn’t respond as Tord pushes a drink his way.

“I do not see a name tag, soldier. Since you are to be my killer, may I ask your name?” 

Silence.

Tord sighs.

“Very well, then.” He downs his wine. “Are you going to get on with it, or can I have a cigar before I go out?”

“You’re a lot calmer than your little friends were.” 

Tord tenses, jaw tightening. “Pardon?”

The man across from him smiles, and it makes Tord’s blood boil. His voice is hoarse and high and dripping with malice. “When your friends were going to die, they weren’t nearly as calm as you were. The ginger one was sobbing. We killed him first, then your little guard dog got pissed and charged us so we had to kill him. And the tiny one, in the green, he just broke down. Couldn’t finish him off fast, had to just leave him with a bullet in his chest.”

Rage starts to take over Tord’s higher brain functions. 

“And of course, a while later when we killed that guy with the eyebrows, he tried to fight till the end.”

The man has made his way to Tord’s side, still smiling. Tord feels the cold metal of the gun being pressed to his temple.

“You know,” The click of the hammer being pulled back. “It’s a shame we couldn’t get his boyfriend too. Guessing you hid him away somewhere. But hey, we got you.”

Tord wants to rip his throat out. But he keeps his calm, stoic demeanor, even as fury slowly builds.

“Goodbye, Red Leader.”

Tord has heard gunshots, but never one that close to him. He has about three seconds of awareness. He feels burning pain in his skull, blood pouring down his head and his face. His head hits the desk, eye wide open.

And Red Leader is no more. Tord is no more. Blood gushes into a puddle around the corpse’s head, dripping off the desk and onto the floor where it soaks into the carpet. The killer cleans his gun barrel, and he’s smiling with satisfaction.

Red Leader is dead. His mission is complete.


End file.
